by Marilyn Stern
MEF found that DHS grants are also made to groups promoting and perpetuating “hatred, bigotry, and extremism.”
Benjamin Baird, director of MEF Action, the Middle East Forum’s project for advocacy and activism, spoke to an August 18 MEF Podcast (video) about the Forum’s July 2025 reportthat he co-authored with Anna Stanley on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) funding of terrorists and extremist organizations. The following summarizes his comments:
MEF’s February 2025 report “Terror Finance at the State Department and USAID” revealed that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations involved with designated terrorist organizations. Baird’s and Stanley’s report on DHS’s grant programs is part of an ongoing audit of “problematic spending” by the federal government. Their report laid bare that “$25 million or more went to extremist groups here in the United States, some of those with links to foreign terrorist organizations.”
MEF found that DHS grants are also made to groups promoting and perpetuating “hatred, bigotry, and extremism.”
The report specifically investigated three DHS grant distribution programs: (1) the Nonprofit Security Grant Program; (2) the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Program, now integrated into the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships; and (3) DHS’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is primarily dispersed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and funded through appropriations.
At first glance, Nonprofit Security Grant Program grants secure houses of worship and religious nonprofits to thwart hate crimes. Yet, MEF found that grants are also made to groups promoting and perpetuating “hatred, bigotry, and extremism.” CVE, a de-radicalization program that uses community groups, local organizations, and law enforcement “to prevent acts of terror before they happen,” overlooks the ideology of Islamist groups as the very source of extremism the program is meant to counter.
Although FEMA provides funds for natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, the Islamic Circle of North America, a U.S. branch of the violent South Asian Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami, received a $10.3 million government grant under the first Trump administration. This same Islamist group’s terrorist wing, Hizbul Mujahideen, is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
MEF’s investigation found that such problems are not isolated. “It’s a systemic problem” that occurs especially when it involves Islamic organizations and is characterized by a lack of vetting and transparency. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program had a particularly egregious problem during the Biden presidency because his administration paired with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to promote the Nonprofit Security Grant Program’s grant program. CAIR, a Hamas-aligned organization, was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator by a federal court judge during the Holy Land Foundation trial.
Partners such as CAIR invite Islamist organizations and is involved with extremist mosques. After a Muslim nonprofit that was rejected following a security review, CAIR fought the rejection and contrived ways to direct future monies to them. CAIR “will always put so-called ‘civil rights’ ahead of the general public good and public safety.”
The Nonprofit Security Grant Program has also granted monies to “foreign-linked groups, foreign-owned and foreign-controlled groups.” Between 2013 and 2023, U.S. mosques linked to the Iranian regime memorialized Hezbollah “martyrs,” and read aloud messages from Ayatollah Khamenei that praised the regime’s “revolutionary brand of Shia Iranian Islamism.”
Among the “fundamental flaws” in the CVE program, which was begun during the Obama administration, was erroneously attributing radicalization and terrorism to “poverty or single-parenthood homes.”
Turkey is also a problem regarding reception of Nonprofit Security Grant Program security grants. The Diyanet Center of America in Lanham, Maryland, paid for by the Turkish government through its Directorate of Religious Affairs, owns a $110 million mosque complex whose sermons are approved by Ankara’s religious authorities. A recipient of Nonprofit Security Grant Program grants, the Diyanet complex includes luxury hotels, residences, and Turkish baths. All of these facilities are at the disposal of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when engaging in diplomacy with public officials in the U.S. to further Turkish foreign policy. Erdoğan also uses the venue to address Muslim Americans, many of whom have sided with Islamist organizations in recent years. To have the Diyanet’s “security dollars subsidized by the U.S. government” is “absolutely outrageous.”
Among the “fundamental flaws” in the CVE program, which was begun during the Obama administration, was erroneously attributing radicalization and terrorism to “poverty or single-parenthood homes.” Another blind spot was the “mistaken belief that nonviolent Islamists can be used to help fight terrorism.” The U.K.’s Prevent Program tried this misguided approach, “and it failed.”
In the final months of his administration, Obama increased CVE grants, rushing through monies to groups “tied to Hezbollah.” In 2021, Biden applied diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a policy in his administration’s hiring practices and awarding of contracts and grants. He also increased Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding to Islamist organizations. During his administration, DHS grants were under the aegis of then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and approved by him. Consequently, he should be held directly responsible for grants to Islamist groups on his watch. Democrats who indulge in “woke politics” are more likely to trust Islamist organizations—a problem that could resurface in the future.
The Trump administration has become more attentive to cutting funding to Islamist groups “to get rid of some of the bad actors that were receiving some of these grants.” The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Islamic organization founded in California, was among the groups whose funding was cut. MB groups use dawah (proselytizing) and missionary work to spread Islam by engaging in “good works,” but with an agenda. An example is providing aid after a hurricane, which appears upstanding, “but they use this to build their power structures to recruit people” to further radicalize them and “grow their ranks.”
After the Muslim Public Affairs Council was marginalized by the Trump administration, many Muslim groups did not want to be involved in the CVE program. As a result, CVE today does not have any Islamic groups receiving monies. However, MEF encourages the administration to engage with vetted, moderate Muslim groups that genuinely fight radicalization.
MEF encourages the administration to engage with vetted, moderate Muslim groups that genuinely fight radicalization.
It is critical that Congress institute permanent safeguards in a “two-part process” to “change transparency and make vetting reforms” and create permanent changes so that a new administration cannot restart funding Islamist groups. That “nonviolent Islamists are often not actually nonviolent” is evident after examining their beliefs, statements, and sermons, which often radicalize people to commit violence. The executive branch needs to “do rescissions to rescind money” currently approved for Islamist organizations and enforce new policies to ensure that extremist groups are excluded.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem recently mandated security reviews of at least five days prior to approval of proposed grants. This is a promising step “to do the right thing,” and it should be followed by conducting in-depth vetting. Instead of relegating deep dives to “extreme circumstances,” DHS should examine groups’ social media histories, or conduct a “basic check” by examining the groups’ past events. In addition, it should review mosques’ sermons to see if they contain radicalizing content.
The problem stems largely from an unwieldy bureaucracy that for years was staffed by “woke careerists.” It will take more than one administration to vet “the culture that they created.” Although personnel changes are currently under way, “something we’ve never done before in the history of the modern federal government,” it is going to require a “culture change” that speaks to the way we form our bureaucracy.
The website https://www.usaspending.gov/ lists all kinds of federal grants. Entering the name of a radical mosque or nonprofit will reveal whether they are receiving grant money, but due to “transparency flaws,” the website is often incomplete and out of date. “U.S. citizens, watchdog groups, nonprofits—we should all have the ability to check this very closely to ensure that our government is doing due diligence and giving money to the types of groups that deserve them.”
Marilyn Stern
Source: https://www.meforum.org/podcasts/benjamin-baird-on-homeland-insecurity-how-the-dhs-helped-finance-islamist-terror
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